116 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
ment of his youthful charge was quite as difficult as 
making a success of the mine. His grievances on this 
score were duly reported at Couéron, and if he was 
really trying to carry out the instructions which came 
from France, it was perhaps no wonder that he received 
the undisguised contempt of his rebellious pupil. How 
just the naturalist’s charges against his hated tutor 
may have been, will be considered in the sequel, but 
Lieutenant Audubon’s letters,’ to be given presently at 
length, clearly show that in spite of the strained rela- 
tions which later ensued, Dacosta continued to enjoy his 
confidence for some time after young Audubon’s return 
to France in 1805. The more serious troubles that fol- 
lowed seem to have arisen from entanglements into 
which all were later drawn. 
In the first two letters to be given, but the third and 
fourth of the series, Jean Audubon refers particularly 
to “Mill Grove” and the prospective mine, and to the 
proposed marriage of his son to Lucy Bakewell, con- 
cerning which he was reluctant to give his consent for 
reasons which he specifies at length; his sanction was 
in fact withheld until the young man was on the road to 
self-support two years later. 
Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta 
[Nantes, 1804-5] 
I told you to sell to W. Thomas the portion on the other 
side . . . but your letter of the 27th of September with that 
*For copies of a part of the Audubon-Dacosta correspondence, which 
is perhaps half of what exists but all that it was possible to obtain, I 
am indebted to Monsieur Lavigne. The first letter, the present copy of 
which is incomplete, was evidently written in the winter of 1804-5. 
Lieutenant Audubon, who at this time was sixty-one years old, was living 
at Couéron, but came to Nantes to conduct his correspondence. All 
the letters were carefully transcribed in a separate copybook, and are 
here translated as literally as possible from the French. 
